“It’s just possible Mrs. Pope isn’t waiting for your admiration and approval, my dear,” Jim said, nettled “But I doubt, whatever she knew of you, if she would speak so unkindly about you!”

Julia turned as scarlet as if a whip had fallen across her face.  She stared at him for a moment with fixed, horrified eyes, then crushed her letter together with a spasmodic gesture of the hands, and let it fall as she went blindly toward the bedroom door.  Jim sat staring after her, puzzled at first, then with the red blood surging into his face.  He dropped his cigarette and his newspaper, and for perhaps three minutes there was no sound in the apartment but the coffee bubbling in the percolator, and the occasional clank of the radiator.

Then Jim jumped up suddenly and flung open the door of the bedroom.  Julia was sitting at her dressing-table, one elbow resting upon it, and her head dropped on her hand.  She raised heavy eyes and looked at him.

“Don’t be a fool, Ju,” Jim said, solicitous and impatient.  “You know I didn’t mean anything by that.  I wouldn’t be such a cad.  You know I wouldn’t say a thing like that—­I couldn’t.  Come on back and finish your coffee.”

But he did not kiss her; he did not put his arm about her; and Julia felt curiously weary and cold as she came slowly back to her place.  Jim immediately lighted a fresh cigarette, and began to rattle away somewhat nervously of his plans for the day.  He was going over to the Oakland Hospital to look at his man with the spine—­better not try to meet for lunch.  But how about that Pacific Avenue house?  If Julia took the motor and stopped at the agent’s for the key, he would meet her there at four—­how about it?

Agreed.  Gosh!  It was nearly ten o’clock, and Jim had to get out to the Children’s Hospital before he went to Oakland.  Julia had a quick kiss, and was advised to take good care of herself.  Then Jim was gone, and she could fling her arm across the table and sob as if her heart would break.

Julia cried for a long time.  Then she stopped resolutely, and spent a long half hour in serious thought, her fingers absently tracing the threads of the tablecloth with a fork, her thoughts flying.

Presently she roused herself, telephoned Jim’s chauffeur and the agent of the Pacific Avenue house, bathed her reddened eyes, and inspected her new furs, just home from the shop.  Now and then her breast rose with a long sigh, but she did not cry again.

“I’ll wear my new furs,” she decided soberly.  “Jim loves me to look pretty.  And I must cheer up; he hates me to be blue!  Who can I lunch with, to cheer up?  Aunt Sanna!  I’ll get a cold chicken and some cake, and go out to The Alexander!”

So the outward signs of the storm were obliterated, and no one knew of the scar that Julia carried from that day in her heart.  Only a tiny, tiny scar, but enough to remind her now and then with cold terror that even into her Paradise the serpent could thrust his head, enough to prove to her bitter satisfaction that there was already something that Jim’s money could not buy.